Italy failed to qualify for the Qatar World Cup

Italy failed to qualify for the WC
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What a dramatic match we saw last night! Italy, the champion of Europe, couldn’t qualify for the Qatar World Cup from the European Zone. Last night, North Macedonia eliminated Italy in the playoff round, preventing the four-time FIFA World Cup champion from qualifying. As a result, Italy will miss the upcoming World Cup as they did in 2018. Despite having so many stars in their squad, Italy failed to secure their place on the biggest show on earth.

In the qualifier round of the European Zone, Italy were in Group C. They finished this round in second place with 16 points from eight matches. On the other hand, Switzerland were on the top of the table in this group. As a result, Switzerland qualified for the WC directly, while Italy went to the playoff rounds. Last night, they faced Macedonia in the playoffs at Palermo Stadium, where the home team lost the match and have disqualified for the Qatar World Cup.

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Match Report

In this Do or Die match, Italy manager Roberto Mancini played his best possible XI against Macedonia. He set the team formation with 4-3-3. Stars like Donnarruma, Veratti, Jorginho, Immobile, and Insigne played last night for Italy. On the other side, Macedonia’s manager Blagoja Milevski played his team in a 4-1-4-1 formation.

As the home team, Italy played very pressing football from the beginning. In the entire match, they had 66% possession on the ball. Moreover, the Mancini boys took 32 attempts in this game. But most of their shots were not on the target. They had only five shots on target. On the other side, Macedonia defended their post for their life. They didn’t allow the strikers of Italy to score goals.

As a result, the match was looking to go in the extra time as both teams couldn’t score any goals. But the magic moment comes in the injury time for Macedonia. They found the net at the very last moment as the midfielder Aleksandar Trajkovski scored the goal in 90+2 minutes with the help of B. Miovski. That golden goal earned a massive victory for Macedonia against the home team. As a result, Italy, the champion of the Euro 2020, failed to qualify for the World Cup. On the other side, Macedonia are now preparing themselves to face Portugal in the final game of the Playoff round.